Concludes that both able and less able eighth grade readers who read text versions in which key concepts and the relations between them had been explained thoroughly learned significantly more word meanings than did students who read any of the other versions. (FL)

Reports on two experiments that explore the comprehension difficulties of children with normal word recognition ability. Concludes that skilled readers engage in more constructive processing and that comprehension difficulties are not the result of a defective working memory. (SRT)

Investigates differences in performance on a task involving judgments of word-likeness between a group of reading-disabled children and normal readers matched to them either in reading level or age. Shows that although the knowledge of orthographic structure of reading-disabled children matches that of younger normal readers, reading-disabled…

Tests the hypothesis that differences between first-language (L1) and second-language (L2) reading and spelling profiles could be accounted for by lack of proficiency in the L2 or differences in orthographic complexity. Finds that neither of these explanations alone sufficed to explain the development of reading and spelling in the two languages…

Notes the lack of funded research. Finds that evidence for beliefs is lacking in any broad frame, although there are reports which add to the picture concerning how children learn to read and how they become better readers. Discusses reading research methodology. (RS)

The effects of an integrated language arts instructional program on reading comprehension skills of learning lab students were examined using the Analytical Reading Inventory, and their attitudes toward recreational and academic reading were assessed using the Elementary Reading Attitude Survey. Subjects were at-risk fifth and sixth grade…

A study demonstrated that young children who have difficulty with phonics can be taught to read through other methods, that phonics is only one of the many useful strategies that a child can employ, and that many contextual strategies are easier to learn and more reliable than phonics. A case study was conducted during an intervention with a young…

A study focused on the nature and effect of constraints on the hypotheses that learners make about the meanings of words. Two experiments were conducted at a large midwestern university: the first, involving 68 undergraduate students divided randomly into two groups, tested taxonomic and durative constraints on nouns, and time of day and cessation…

The research and practical questions about the internal lexicon, the associated network of internal representation basic to word meaning, boil down to whether in reading English the phonological route is obligatory or optional. Since the English writing system is morphophonemic, not phonetic, access to the internal lexicon cannot and should not…

Two experiments examined the effects of definition and synonym as context clues embedded in three types of text (fiction, exposition, and science). It was predicted that (1) type of text would influence clue usage; (2) difficulty of the text, based on increasingly more detailed complex information, would interfere with the use of clues; (3) clue…

A study was conducted to describe factors influencing the acquisition of facilitating and inhibiting reading strategies by adult beginning readers (ABRs) in order to generate potential guidelines for instruction. Using an adapted form of the Goodman and Burke taxonomy of oral reading miscues as initial framework, the investigators described ABRs'…

In presenting a historical overview of trends in vocabulary research, this paper emphasizes the importance of word knowledge as a critical component in reading comprehension. It describes research examining current psychological and pedagogical models as they relate to vocabulary knowledge, and explores vocabulary research in the area of specific…

Approaches that appear most effective for teaching beginning reading to children who are having difficulty learning to read are discussed in this paper. Research indicates that a code-emphasis method produces the best results. To determine which type of code instruction is most appropriate, reading programs were analyzed in terms of content,…

A study was undertaken to investigate the extent to which reading by students with varying skill levels is a text-driven or a concept-driven process; that is, it examined the conditions under which readers used context to identify words. The 72 second and third grade students in the study read target words that varied in decodability, frequency,…

A programmed-workbook cassette-delivered approach to letter and number recognition, "From Letters to Words," was compared with a traditional method of teaching letter recognition. The subjects were 153 disadvantaged first-grade students. The 75 experimental subjects were individually instructed by the investigators and teachers on the use of the…